Is Area Effect too Cheap?

[a humble lich]

Originally Posted by Railstar

Going back to this:



GURPS isn't supposed to prevent powers such as City Killer from existing. The U in GURPS stands for Universal, the idea being that if you want a way to model such powers then the system allows for it.

This isn't a bug. It's a feature.

All of the above applies to Earth Killer. It's not the system's job to prevent powers like Earth Killer from existing. It's the GM's job to decide if it fits into the setting. If the GM decides it does, if such a power is part of his campaign, then being able to create such abilities under the rules is a strength of GURPS, not a weakness.

Just because I'm at a loss to think of a campaign where such a power is a good thing isn't the problem of a group who can work with that sort of thing.

This isn't a mechanics problem.

Wasn't expecting to have quite such a strong opinion here...

I agree, but I think there are some issues. There are a lot of campaign types where a world killing power is perfectly reasonable. For example a high power supers game with characters such as Galactus, the Phoenix, and Thanos could totally see planet killing powers---especially if you had PC supervillians. However, I also think the point cost for planet killing powers can be too low.

Also, while planet killing powers are going to be outlawed in most games, what about a scaled down version of the Earth-killer power which only effects a city block sized area. How much should a power like this cost?

City-Block-Killer: Corrosive Attack 1d (Area Effect, 2,000 yards, +500%; Emanation, -20%; Extended Duration, 1000x, +120%; No Signature, +20%; Persistent, +40%; Selective Area, +20%; Underwater, +20%) [80].

A semi-related issue is the Selective enhancement. I would say that the Earth-Killer without Selective should really cost no more than a Perk in most campaigns. Sure you can destroy everything, but you will destroy everything. It would basically be a way for a player to throw the table over and end most campaigns, which really every player has that power. Without Selective, a balancing point of Area Effect is that you often effect targets that you don't want to hurt, and large values of Area Effect often become less useful because there are fewer times when you can use them.

[ericthered]

Originally Posted by Anthony

Area effect is something of an oddity in that it has exponential effect, whereas most effects in GURPS are linear or quadratic. This is not inherently better or worse (there are effects that are a lot easier to represent with exponential scaling, hence KYOS, but it means inconsistency.

exponential in gurps isn't that big of an oddity. Look at range and duration modifiers.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by Daigoro

An Area Attack only has a height of 4 yards, so this would only affect people in a planet-wide shell of the same altitude as the attacker. Not insignificant, but not universal either.

Where does it say that? Area Spells, Control, and Create have that restriction, but other Area Effects are spherical by default (otherwise, they would be useless in air, space, or water). Area Effects also do not require LOS, as they target everything, though bunkers and the like provide protection. A City Block Killer attack will create a spherical effect 2,000 yards high (and deep).

[naloth]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Where does it say that? Area Spells, Control, and Create have that restriction, but other Area Effects are spherical by default (otherwise, they would be useless in air, space, or water). Area Effects also do not require LOS, as they target everything, though bunkers and the like provide protection. A City Block Killer attack will create a spherical effect 2,000 yards high (and deep).

I would agree that it's a radius measured from the point of effect (in this case "you" since you have Emanation). Otherwise you would need LOS to the point of origin. For the purposes of being attacked, everything in the radius is treated as though they were attacked with a weapon radiating from that point, which allows you to take cover (bunkers, buildings, your car, intervening people, etc). The damage is also "large area" damage has it own quirks ( average DR ) worth mentioning.

[RyanW]

The problem isn't only (might say isn't primarily) Area Effect, but combining multiple large and compounding modifiers on a cheap base ability. A high level of Area Effect and a high level of Cyclic, in this case.

[Tomsdad]

Originally Posted by evileeyore

These are whiteboard problems. They don't exist in game because a GM looks at it and says "No".

This +1

It's a game system written down for people to use to create games they want. Some people might want some of the attacks in this thread in their game at these costs so these attacks are possible to build.

On the cost of them (or the constituent parts of them), system wide points cost is arbitrary and while I'm sure there been some efforts to balance them as much as possible given the very nature of them being so diverse in scope trying to look for balance in all combinations of all possible things built in GURPS is I think a bit hopeful. Especially as in this case it's the synergistic combination of "Area effect" and other aspects of the attack.

Ultimately like the GM just saying no, the GM can also say "yeah OK you can have that but its bit unusual for the campaign so it will come with an 'Unusual Background' cost of 200pts".


See also threads about should ST costs 10pts a point in TL11 space opera games where everyone is shooting Acc12 8d6(10) at each other, compared to a TL1 campaign where everyone's hitting each other with SW+1 clubs or throwing rocks at each other

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I was just wondering if anyone else found the Area Effect enhancement to be too cheap. For example, using the Disease Power from Horrors, I can create the following Power for 50 Points. I call it City Killer.

City Killer (+1,150%): Toxic Attack 1d (Area Effect, 8192 yards, +650%; Blood Agent, +100%; Cyclic, 21 cycles, 1 day, Halted by a successful Physicians roll, Highly Contagious, +250%; Emanation, -20%; Selective Area, +20%; Symptoms, Blindness, -1/3 HP, +150%) [50].

No. But I would slap a player silly when they tried to include Selective in that mess.

[Daigoro]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Where does it say that? Area Spells, Control, and Create have that restriction, but other Area Effects are spherical by default (otherwise, they would be useless in air, space, or water). Area Effects also do not require LOS, as they target everything, though bunkers and the like provide protection. A City Block Killer attack will create a spherical effect 2,000 yards high (and deep).

BS p101 Call-out box:

Assume that range is 100 yards, area is a circle 2 yards in radius (and 12’ high, should volume matter), and duration is 10 seconds, unless the advantage specifies otherwise. Exceptions will be noted.


We also had a recent chat about it here and a while ago here (and here).

[malloyd]

Originally Posted by RyanW

The problem isn't only (might say isn't primarily) Area Effect, but combining multiple large and compounding modifiers on a cheap base ability. A high level of Area Effect and a high level of Cyclic, in this case.

My personal rule of thumb is if it has more than two modifiers on it, I'm suspicious. We definitely need to talk about what you expect it to do, because frankly when you are putting together something with that many modifiers, your concept probably doesn't match the rules for them in the first place, and will probably be pricing it by feel rather than whatever the rules say anyway.

[talonthehand]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Where does it say that? Area Spells, Control, and Create have that restriction, but other Area Effects are spherical by default (otherwise, they would be useless in air, space, or water). Area Effects also do not require LOS, as they target everything, though bunkers and the like provide protection. A City Block Killer attack will create a spherical effect 2,000 yards high (and deep).

Would this solve your problem of Area Attack being too cheap? To get a sphere you'd need two separate Area Attack modifiers on the attack (one for the horizontal plane, one for the vertical).